Few in Uwajima understand how Greeneville skipper escaped trial

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

Chihoko Nishida treasures a uniform she has from her late husband's days aboard the Ehime Maru.

It is her only physical connection to a tragedy she says she will never be able to understand.

Nishida sees her chances running out for what she considers a satisfactory resolution in the aftermath of the Feb. 9 submarine collision that killed her husband. So far, nothing is working out the way she expected.

News yesterday that Scott Waddle, the U.S. submarine commander responsible for the accident that left nine dead, would receive nothing harsher than a career-ending letter of reprimand reverberated with the same force as an earthquake in the southwestern Japanese harbor town of Uwajima.

"How disappointing," said Nishida, 49, wife of the late Hiroshi Nishida, 49, an engineer who spent 13 years taking students from Uwajima Fisheries High School on training adventures aboard the Ehime Maru.

U.S. military representatives explained to her with "technical and political words" that a letter of reprimand "is really heavy punishment in Hawai'i," she said.

But Nishida is distrustful of the Navy and of her own government, and her grief and anger are replaced by frustration at the thought of Waddle heading toward a life in retirement.

"He didn't do anything directly to take their lives, but he was responsible. He should be punished more," she said. "This is not an honorable discharge. This is not honorable at all."

Uwajima, once a refuge for fishermen and pearl-seekers, is uncomfortable being on the map for this.

The mayor held a press conference yesterday for Japanese media in which he tried to explain an American military process that doesn't make sense to him. In a telephone interview later, Mayor Hirohisa Ishibashi said Waddle's punishment, known as an admiral's mast, is too light.

"Let's say someone in Japan had a car accident that killed someone," he said. "It doesn't matter whether he meant it or not. He goes to prison for at least some time. That's Japanese law."

In the rest of Japan, the aftermath of the tragedy is fading from the headlines, replaced by the latest news about an election likely to unseat Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who continued to play golf after hearing of the tragedy off O'ahu.

For the average Uwajima citizen, it's hard to understand the severity of Waddle's punishment, said Fumiko Shigaki, who knows the family of a victim and a survivor and has been keeping up with the news.

"The public opinion is going to follow how the families respond," said Sheila Smith, a specialist in Japanese security at Honolulu's East-West Center, an education and research organization established by Congress to strengthen understanding and relations between the United States and countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

"I think there's a perception that an admiral's mast meant a lighter sentence," she said. "It's hard to read how this will play out in Japan. It may feed into other feelings about the U.S. military, but it just depends on how much people are paying attention."

Interpreter Toshi Erikson contributed to this story.